Bitcoin Still Bullish; New Blackmail Scams Emerge

As we discussed in our last week’s update, Bitcoin’s bullish market drove the price over $6,700 to break past the $7,000 range this week. Thanks to a stronger buying sentiment, Bitcoin has reverted back to former positions and is looking at a further increase according to current market signals, but only if profit-takers don’t turn the market bearish.

According to Bloomberg, the latest price rally was the longest time Bitcoin sustained its growth in over a month, marking a total of four consecutive days of gains. Throughout the past week, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by trading volume rose 4.7% by this Tuesday, pulling other altcoins like Ether and Ripple along with it to grow approximately 3.5%.

As the financial portal reports, Bitcoin’s longest rally in a month has led the cryptocurrency to break over its 50-day moving average and gain over 20% over its lowest point this August. Experts suggest that one of the key reasons for this rally is the weakening dollar, which is driving investors to turn to commodities like gold but also cryptocurrency assets.

Further Increase Expected?

During the last seven days, Bitcoin’s chart drew an almost straight upward line as the cryptocurrency only kept growing without suffering big fallbacks. The lowest price point was reached after midnight on Thursday when Bitcoin touched $6,324.70. As for the highest price point, it was hit last night when Bitcoin reached a price of $7,103.76 per single coin.

During this period, the 24-hour trading volume moved mostly between $3.5 billion and $4 billion but rose significantly higher when the price reached its peak. As of now, the volume is at $4.5 billion, showing there’s still strong interest in trading, while the market cap is at $121.7 billion.

Our technical analysis shows that the market is still pro-buy, with 6 out of 12 technical oscillators and all 12 moving averages sending buying signals. The SMA 100 is safely above the SMA 200, confirming that the path of less resistance is to the upside. With some selling pressure still visible, Bitcoin could be consolidating before moving further upwards. The next level we’re looking for this week is $7,500 but only as long as the market stays bullish. After all, Bitcoin is yet to bottom out.

New Blackmailing Scam Appears Asking for Bitcoin

In other news, Fortune magazine reports that a new e-mail scam involving Bitcoin has spread this summer and it uses blackmail to force people into sending cryptocurrency. Reportedly, during the summer a number of people have been sent e-mails warning them that they were recorded while browsing adult websites and that they are to send $1,900 in BTC to prevent the release of their videos online.

To convince them the threat was real, the subject line of the e-mail and the first sentence of the sent messages contained each user’s first name and account password. However, as Fortune’s tech contributor noted, these e-mails were only bluffs by people who’ve downloaded data dumps of stolen passwords from the “Have I Been Pwned” database.

As it turns out, all people who were advised to check whether the passwords sent to their e-mails were available on “Have I Been Pwned” were able to resist paying and not face any consequences, confirming the whole scam campaign was just a bluff. Thus, if you have received a similar e-mail message, you might want to check your password against the large info database. If your password is there, it is very likely you are being bluffed. But if not, you might want to seek help from the authorities.